Jayalalithaa and Vijayakanth

Chennai, Feb. 1: The falling out between former allies Jayalalithaa and Vijayakanth was complete today as the two leaders clashed openly in the Assembly, following which the DMDK chief and his MLAs were evicted from the House.

The AIADMK had dumped Vijayakanth’s DMDK along with other allies, the CPM and the CPI, during the October local body polls but still managed to win the elections.

Today, when Vijayakanth claimed that had the government hiked bus fares and milk prices ahead of the local body polls it would have lost badly, Jayalalithaa directly challenged the actor to contest an upcoming by-election in the state on his own.

The Tamil Nadu chief minister asserted that her party would be able to win it without any allies.

Vijayakanth retorted that the ruling party would win the by-election using unfair means just as the DMK had done during its last term.

To this Jayalalithaa replied: “The Opposition leader has already admitted defeat.”

Vijayakanth responded that Jayalalithaa had blamed electronic voting machines for her loss in the 2006 Assembly election but had no such complaints after her 2011 triumph.

This angered the AIADMK ministers who stood up to rebut the charges, following which the DMDK MLAs started gesticulating at the ruling party members.

At one stage, Vijayakanth, as he does onscreen, jutted out his folded tongue and wagged his finger furiously at the treasury bench.

The Speaker, D. Jayakumar, immediately declared the behaviour of the DMDK MLAs to be unbecoming of the House and ordered the marshals to evict them.

After their eviction he referred their “indecorous behaviour” to the privileges committee.

DMK MLAs happily watched the shouting match between the former political friends.

The clash between the AIADMK and the DMDK marks the final parting of ways between the two parties, which had fought the April 2011 Assembly elections as allies.

In fact, the DMDK had immensely benefited by its alliance with the ruling party and increased its tally in the House from one seat to 29, five more than the DMK. The AIADMK, too, profited as the alliance prevented any division in the anti-DMK votes.

Jayalalithaa took a calculated risk of dumping all her major allies for the local body elections last October with a view to consolidating her party’s hold in the state’s corporation, municipalities and town panchayats.

The results proved her calculations right as the AIADMK swept all the 10 corporations and a majority of the municipalities and town panchayats.

The chief minister has been planning to use the local body strategy for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections so that she can contest more seats while the anti-AIADMK votes get divided between the DMK-Congress and the DMDK-led front.

“The clash in the Assembly and the eviction of Vijayakanth and his MLAs are further proof that the AIADMK has no plans to mend its relations with the DMDK,” admitted a senior AIADMK MLA.